Everyone stopped, including Colette. All eyes then settled back on Ed.

“What do you mean?” his wife asked. “Tell her what?”

Ed was glaring at Kim, a self-satisfied smile on his face. “About the notebook.”

Chapter 58

Now

“What notebook?”

“The one you stole six years ago, with all the ideas and words you used to build your so-called wellness empire. They were never yours and you know it.”

Annie sat forward. What was he talking about? What else had Ed been up to?

And more to the point, what did Kim have to do with it?

“I don’t know what you mean...” she began, but Annie noticed she’d gone white.

“Colette, tell her,” Ed implored once more, his face smug. “All of this, it could have, should have, been yours.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Colette looked drained as she turned to Kim. “When I came here that summer, I brought along a diary, silly little stuff I’d written to keep me going when Mum was sick, inspirational quotes to keep my spirits up. But I misplaced it in the house somehow, even though I didn’t realize it at the time. I was too busy enjoying myself. Then when your book came out, I recognized some of the chapter headings, and figured you’d come across the diary but never said anything.” She shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

“No big deal?” Ed raged. “She used your words to get rich, never crediting you.”

“Because she obviously didn’t know the diary was mine, you idiot,” Colette snapped. She looked at Kim. “I mentioned to him in passing one day that I thought you must have found the diary. It’s no big deal, honestly. There was no way to tell who it belonged to, especially as I’d written any personal stuff in Italian in case my mother ever came across it at home. And really, it’s not as though any of the quotes were even mine anyway—I picked them up here and there over the years.”

Annie was floored, although it kind of made sense that this hippie-dippie stuff had come from Colette and not Kim. She was exactly the kind of person who believed in that woo-woo nonsense.

“I swear, I had no idea the book belonged to you—or the words. If I had I’d never...” The words spilled out as Kim explained how she’d tried to track down the journal’s origin, believing it to be a previous guest or the villa’s owner. “I tried everything, honestly! I stole nothing. Not on purpose anyway.”

“I know. And it’s not as if I could or would have done anything with it anyway. You’re the go-getter, Kim, the one who can turn your hand to anything and make it a success. And you have. I already pointed all of this out to Ed, but it seems he didn’t listen.”